I thank you for the paccan nuts, which accompanied your letter of March.  Could you procure me a copy of the bill for proportioning crimes and punishments, in the form in which it was ultimately rejected by the House of Delegates?  Young Mr. Bannister desired me to send him regularly the Mercure de France.  I will ask leave to do this through you, and that you will adopt such method of forwarding them to him, as will save him from being submitted to postage, which they would not be worth.  As a compensation for your trouble, you will be free to keep them till you shall have read them.  I am, with sentiments of the most sincere esteem, Dear Sir, your friend and servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER LXI.—­TO JOHN JAY, June 21,1787

TO JOHN JAY.

Paris, June 21,1787.

Sir,

I had the honor of addressing you in a letter of May the 4th, from Marseilles, which was to have gone by the last packet.  Bat it arrived a few hours too late for that conveyance, and has been committed to a private one, passing through England, with a promise that it should go through no post-office.

I was desirous, while at the sea-ports, to obtain a list of the American vessels which have come to them since the peace, in order to estimate their comparative importance to us, as well as the general amount of our commerce with this country, so far as carried on in our own bottoms.  At Marseilles, I found there had been thirty-two, since that period; at Cette, not a single one; at Bayonne, one of our free ports, only one.  This last fact I learned from other information, not having visited that place; as it would have been a deviation from my route, too considerable for the importance of the object.  At Bordeaux, Nantes, and L’Orient, I could not obtain lists in the moment; but am in hopes I shall be able to get them ere long.  Though more important to us, they will probably be more imperfect than that of Marseilles.  At Nantes, I began with Monsieur Dobree an arrangement of his claims.  I visited the military stores, which have been detained there so long, opened some boxes of each kind, and found the state of their contents much better than had been represented.  An exact list of the articles is to be sent me.

The importations into L’Orient of other fish-oils, besides those of the whale, brought to my notice there a defect in the letter of Monsieur de Calonne, of October the 22nd, which letter was formerly communicated to you.  In that, whale oil only was named.  The other fish-oils, therefore, have continued to pay the old duties.  In a conference with Monsieur de Villedeuil, the present Comptroller General, since my return, I proposed the extending the exemption to all fish-oils, according to the letter of the Hanseatic treaty, which had formed the basis of the regulations respecting us.  I think this will be agreed to.  The delays of office first, then the illness of Monsieur